A few cases of mountain- and lee waves simulated by the WRF Model

Mountain waves and lee waves induce atmospheric responses across a range of scales, from local turbulence to decelerations of the globe's mean zonal circulation. Therefore, increasing our understanding of these internal gravity waves and improving how they are numerically simulated should allow us to solve some of the extant problems in weather forecasting and climate research.

Because the WRF Model is being used both to forecast weather and to study climate, it is useful to evaluate how the model simulates mountain- and lee waves when initialized with real data. The authors will present simulations by the WRF Model (ARW core) for multiple cases of gravity waves over the Rocky Mountains. In some cases the waves were responsible for hazardous turbulence at the flight level of commercial aircraft. In other cases the waves were responsible for strong winds in the boundary layer and near the ground.

The authors will compare results from simulations by the WRF Model with observations and with simulations by other models. This research is relevant to any efforts to apply operationally a nested WRF Model for predicting mountain- and lee waves, as well as the turbulence they induce.